Telangana assembly elections: BJP releases second list of 28 candidates

BJP on Friday released its second list of 28 candidates for the coming Telangana assembly elections.

Baddam Bal Reddy and Endala Lakshminarayana, MLAs in the undivided Andhra Pradesh assembly, are among the prominent in the list.

Bal Reddy, who had earlier represented Karwan in Hyderabad, would contest from Rajendranagar. The assembly segment mainly comprises areas on the periphery of Hyderabad.

Lakshminarayana would test his fortunes from Nizamabad Urban constituency, which he had represented earlier.

BJP, which is going it alone in the December 7 elections to the 119-member assembly, has earlier released its first list of 38 nominees on October 20.

The latest list was finalised by the Central Election Committee of the BJP which met Thursday under the presidentship of party chief Amit Shah in Delhi.

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and other senior leaders and members of the committee, a BJP release said.

The announcement of candidates triggered protests by supporters of aspirants who failed to get the party ticket.

While the party named G Yoganand, who is into construction business, as the nominee from Serilingampalli assembly segment in Hyderabad, the supporters of an aspirant for the ticket held protest at the BJP office here.

In Nizamabad, a group of people, stated to be the supporters of an aspirant, damaged furniture at the party office after their leader was denied the ticket.

Shah had kicked off the party's campaign for the Telangana polls on September 15 at Mahabubnagar and addressed another rally at Karimnagar lat month.

BJP had five MLAs in the recently dissolved state assembly.